Light rays bend around a microscopic sphere just as they would around a gargantuan black hole thanks to a new chip-sized device. The experiment, detailed September 29 in Nature Photonics, demonstrates physicists’ newfound ability to mimic and miniaturize cosmic-scale physical processes in the lab.

“It’s a nice little demonstration that can bend light around 360 degrees, just as gravity can around a black hole,” says William Unruh, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia i...